1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information terminal which communicates with a site on a communication network to acquire an electronic document such as a Web page that the site has, and an authentication condition check method of the information terminal and an authentication condition check program executed in the information terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
An information terminal which acquires an electronic document such as a Web page through a communication network is available. (For example, refer to JP-A-2002-169644.)
The electronic document refers to a collection of information that can be browsed at a time on a browser (browsing software) such as a Web browser, and is formed so as to contain text and/or image information. The electronic document can be formed so as to contain voice information, moving image information, etc., in addition to the text and/or image information.
Such an electronic document is provided from a site on a communication network such as a Web site, and can be acquired with an information terminal through the communication network as explained in JP-A-2002-169644 and can also be stored in a storage section of the information terminal.
The site refers to a data group collectively made up of electronic documents such as a large number of Web pages administrated by one or more servers connected to a network constructed on the communication network or the address of the data group of the server.
When an electronic document as mentioned above is displayed on a display section of an information terminal, if the user specifies a specific portion of the text, different text, a different electronic document, etc., associated with the specific portion is read from the storage section of the information terminal or is acquired from a different site through the communication network for displaying the different text, the different electronic document, etc., on the display section; this function is called hyper link function.
The sites on the communication network for providing such electronic documents include a free site for providing electronic documents free of charge and a charged site for providing all or some electronic documents with a charge. To acquire a pay electronic document from the charged site, the user needs to make a contract with the manager, etc., of the charged site.
To make such a contract, for example, the user needs only to acquire an electronic document describing the contract sign-up form using the hyper link function and then enter the user ID given by the management carrier of the communication line to which the information terminal of the user connects, the number of the credit card of the user, or the like in a predetermined column of the sign-up form and transmit the form to the manager, etc., of the charged site.
The charging system of the charged site is determined uniquely for each charged site; for example, there are a charging system wherein the user can acquire electronic documents at the charged site free of charge after paying charge at the user registration time, a charging system wherein the user must pay charge each time the user acquires an electronic document at the charged site still after user registration, and the like. Thus, the user needs to read and check the convention, etc., described about the charging system, etc., of the charged site before making a contract with the charged site.
The charged site provides such a convention as an electronic document like the contract sign-up form. The user can display the electronic document of the convention on the display section of the information terminal using the hyper link function.
Some sites impose other conditions than the charge payment about providing electronic documents regardless of the charged site or the free site. For example, some sites provide electronic documents provided that the user reaches a given age.
In order to acquire an electronic document from the site imposing any other condition than the charge payment, the user also needs to read and check the convention described about the condition stipulated by the site. The site imposing the condition provides such an electronic document like the convention of the charged site, and the user can display the electronic document of such a convention on the display section of the information terminal using the hyper link function.
In the specification, conditions that the user needs to conform to or approve to acquire an electronic document, such as the requirement for charge payment to acquire an electronic document provided by the site and the requirement for the user to reach a given age, and stipulated by the site as the convention, will be referred to as “authentication conditions”.
JP-A-2002-169644 is referred to as a related art.
However, among the cases that a user makes a contract with the charged site, the user who does not sufficiently read the convention about the authentication conditions may be unaware that the site is a charged site and may conduct user registration with misunderstanding that the site is a free site. The user may misunderstand that a system where the user is charged each time acquiring an electronic document although user registration is free of charge is a free site, and may acquire a pay electronic document assuming that the pay electronic document is free of charge.
If it is stipulated that the user be able to acquire an electronic document from the site only if the user meets the authentication conditions of the age the user who does not sufficiently read the convention about the authentication conditions may misunderstand that it is not necessary to meet such authentication conditions to acquire an electronic document.
A malicious site makes the convention described in an electronic document unnecessarily long or difficult to understand or exaggerates a part of the description of advertisement, thereby intentionally causing the user to misunderstand the charge payment and the authentication conditions of the age. Thus, the user incurs damage.